


Nightmares and Flashbacks

by Magik3



Series: Katyana Future Middle-Age [3]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 20:23:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10543792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magik3/pseuds/Magik3
Summary: Decades after her time in Limbo, Magik is getting better at dealing with nightmares and flashbacks -- with help from Kitty, of course!





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wondering what Illyana and Kitty are like at mid-life. How have they grown emotionally? What has Illyana learned and what is she still working on as a survivor of intense trauma? These two snippets are from my early exploration of those questions.

I'm watching Storm die. I'm so small I can't get to her, I can't stop it. She's the only one who takes care of me and I'm too small to stop him. He's killing her. I hear Cat's voice. She's going to die too. They're all going to die and leave me to be torn into again and again. I'm so small.

But she's calling to me, soft and persistent, close. I open my eyes and see the edge of painted wall at my back. I'm half-awake, curled into the corner of the room. I touch my thigh: thick and muscled. An adult's leg. I'm not that child, I'm not in that place anymore, but I'm not all the way back from it.

"Lyan," Kitty calls softly again, her private name for me. She's sitting against the bed, feet away from me. Far enough that she won't accidentally touch me. She's holding onto the frame of the bed because she wants to reach for me, wants to wrap her arms around me or at least herself. Won't do either. Holds onto the bed so her arms are open, so I know I can crawl to her when I'm able.

I'm gasping, trying to catch my breath, the terror still in my blood too metal and fast. I look at her, try to focus, plead with my eyes.

"Lyan," she says again. "Can you hear me? You're safe. You're in the mansion with me. Everyone's here and safe."

"Again," the word rasps out of me.

"You're safe. You're in the mansion. Everyone is safe. Lyan, you're safe."

I wrap myself in the words, in her name for me, the multi-lingual beauty of it: from Illyana the Russian evolution of Helen, but also from the Arabic word li-an, 'relax,' from a root meaning 'gentle.' She found the name for me, to call me back, to tell me she knows I'm also gentle. Or that I can be when I'm not shaking or fighting.

I drag myself across the floor, lay my head in her lap. She strokes my hair with her fingertips. I'm still shaking. I can't cry yet. The demons feel too close. The memory of them, how if they found me crying they would hurt me worse.  
I turn my face up to her. "Kiss me?"

She doesn't ask, I see the question in her face, but she trusts me. She bends down and kisses my lips, her fingers press on my cheek, holding us in this place and time. She can phase through anything, but she's the solidity in my world.  
The warmth of the kiss goes through my skin, into my bones, pushing away the cold fear, the ice shards of adrenaline. No one in Limbo kissed me. Being kissed reminds the panicked child in me that we're adults now, we're in a good world.  
I sigh and push up on my arms, scoot so I can lean against her side. She wraps an arm around my shoulders.

"Better?"

"Yeah, I'm back. Just the usual, nightmares."

"I know. I don't worry unless you call the sword," she says with a hint of lightness.

"Haven't done that in a while."

"And the nightmare?"

"I was small," I tell her. I don't have to say more. She knows all my nightnares.

"You want to come back to bed?"

"I'm going to sit and breathe for a bit."

"I'll sit with you."

"You don't have to."

She give me the look that says, "Silly, I want to," and settles cross-legged on the floor. I could sit next to her but I don't want to. I climb into her lap, facing her. She chuckles and wraps her arms around me. We breathe together, slowing down, settling into the present.

#

Kids were leaving for the summer break. Only a few because most had to stay at the school, not having great control of their powers. I'd wandered out front to find Kitty and stood watching her watch the kids. She looked serious on the surface, but I saw the joy deep in her eyes.

A long, black car pulled up, door opened, little blonde girl ran out and jumped on a lean kid. He swung her up and hugged her. By the time he set her down, a man had gotten out of the car. Tall with black hair gelled up. The girl ran to him.

My breath stopped. He lifted her, held her easily in one arm. Little blonde girl, black-haired man in a red jacket. Everything red in a sheen over the world. Sounds receeding. Fire under my skin. Fingers curling in, wanting the sword.

Had to move away from these people. The fire rising. I had seconds at most. Couldn't teleport because Limbo would make it worse, might keep me.

Into the school, walking fast and steady so no one knows. This lasts to the stairs and the fire's too high under my skin, red in my vision, the world too far, wreathed in flames. I'm staggering, gripping the railing, dragging myself up. Running along the hall, sprinting, into the room. Slam and lock the door, then I'm in the far corner, hands twitching. I want the sword. I'm burning, shaking, panting.

Kitty phases through the door. I see the edges of her. I can't look at her directly because I killed her. Someone just like her, the version in Limbo. I can't look at her face without remembering how it felt to snap her neck.

She slides down to sit on the floor a few feet away. "Lyan, how bad?" She's trying to tell me I'm okay, but I'm not.

"Nnh," I say. Can't make words. Can't pull a full breath in.

"That bad."

I grunt assent.

Shaking inside, trying not to call fire to me, not to call the sword, not to break the world around me. It's all pain and fire over terror, grief so deep there aren't words.

Kitty moves closer, not touching but right next to me. I don't move away but I can't move closer. Can't look at her. Killed her.

"Did something happen?" she asks.

All the images burned on my eyes receed into the red fire. I see through it but barely, the shadow of a figure of my Kitty. "The girl," I tell her.

"You saw a girl?"

"He took her. He took the girl. She's not safe."

"Where?" she asks, but the question doesn't make sense.

"The girl," I repeat, trying to make her understand.

That little blonde girl is so innocent. She doesn't deserve all the things that are going to happen to her. She was just a child, like any child, loved bunnies and snow, loved soup and chocolate. I choke out the words, "She's innocent. He took her."

"In front of the school?" Kitty asks.

I nod. My face is wet but I don't remember being wounded. I touch my scalp and it's dry. I touch my cheeks, pull away my fingers and look at the clear wet tears. I rub my fingers together, marvel at the dampness that isn't blood.

"She doesn't deserve it," I say.

"I know," Kitty tells me. "You didn't deserve any of it."

"But he took her."

"I know," she says. She holds her arm out and I curl into her.

Tears and fire. I fold myself into the warmth of Kitty, the familiar scent of her, the clean feeling of tears.

"I'm crying," I say after a while.

"Yeah."

"Katya," I hold out my wet fingers so we can both see them. "I'm crying means I'm okay. When I was there, I couldn't cry, learned not to, could only bleed."

"You're safe," she said, tightening her arm around me. "That little girl you saw, she's safe too. I texted her brother, just to make sure. She's safe."

She holds up her other hand with the phone in it so I can see her brother's name and his reply to her that they're just fine and stopping for ice cream on the way home. That little girl gets to go home.

"Good. She's so small," my voice catches on the last word and I can't talk for a while. But at least I don't feel like I'm going to catch fire and burn the school down.

Kitty holds me and lets me cry on her. At least I can cry now. And I don't usually try to hurt anyone, myself included. And if I do, Kitty knows how to stop me.

It's not the same as if I'd stayed that little girl in Russia. I'd only be able to teleport, but I don't think I'd mind. I wouldn't feel such a gulf between me and the world. But now at least I have a home. I have Kitty.


End file.
